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Google’s transparency report gets more transparent

Google announced that it has begun including data regarding the FBI’s use of National Security Letters in its semi-annual Transparency Report. In the Report, Google publishes statistics about how the company handles requests from various governments to censor content or provide data about its users. But until now, those statistics did not include national security investigations, a significant gap in Google’s reporting. The FBI issues NSLs when conducting national security investigations, and can prohibit companies from revealing or discussing such requests. NSLs can be used to obtain the “name, address, length of service, and local and long distance toll billing records” of a Google user. According to the Transparency Report, since 2009, Google has received a maximum of 999 NSLs that affect between 1000-2999 users or accounts per year. Unlike the more detailed nature of other requests that Google publishes, Google will not disclose the exact numbers of NSLs, in order to address FBI concerns.